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Subject: Vietnam Facts vs Fiction

 

For over 30 years I....like many Vietnam veterans....seldom spoke of

Vietnam, except with other veterans, when training soldiers, and in public

speeches. These past five years I have joined the hundreds of thousands who

believe it is high time the truth be told about the Vietnam War and the

people who served there. It's time the American people learn that the United

States military did not lose the War, and that a surprisingly high number of

people who claim to have served there, in fact, DID NOT.

 

As Americans, support the men and women involved in the War on Terrorism,

the mainstream media are once again working tirelessly to undermine their

efforts and force a psychological loss or stalemate for the United States.

We cannot stand by and let the media do to today's warriors what they did to

us 35 years a go.

 

Below are some assembled some facts most readers will find interesting. It

isn't a long read, but it will....I guarantee....teach you some things you

did not know about the Vietnam War and those who served, fought, or died

there. Please share it with those with whom you communicate.

 

Vietnam War Facts:

Facts, Statistics, Fake Warrior Numbers, and Myths Dispelled

 

9,087,000 military personnel served on active duty during the official

Vietnam era from August 5, 1964 to May 7, 1975.

2,709,918 Americans served in uniform in Vietnam

Vietnam Veterans represented 9.7% of their generation.

240 men were awarded the Medal of Honor during the Vietnam War

The first man to die in Vietnam was James Davis, in 1958. He was with the

509th Radio Research Station. Davis Station in Saigon was named for him.

58,148 were killed in Vietnam

75,000 were severely disabled

23,214 were 100% disabled

5,283 lost limbs

1,081 sustained multiple amputations

Of those killed, 61% were younger than 21

11,465 of those killed were younger than 20 years old

Of those killed, 17,539 were married

Average age of men killed: 23.1 years

Five men killed in Vietnam were only 16 years old.

The oldest man killed was 62 years old.

As of January 15, 2 004, there are 1,875 Americans still unaccounted for

from the Vietnam War

97% of Vietnam Veterans were honorably discharged

91% of Vietnam Veterans say they are glad they served

74% say they would serve again, even knowing the outcome

Vietnam veterans have a lower unemployment rate than the same non-vet age

groups.

Vietnam veterans' personal income exceeds that of our non-veteran age group

by more than 18 percent.

87% of Americans hold Vietnam Veterans in high esteem.

There is no difference in drug usage between Vietnam Veterans and

non-Vietnam Veterans of the same age group (Source: Veterans Administration

Study)

Vietnam Veterans are less likely to be in prison - only one-half of one

percent of Vietnam Veterans have been jailed for crimes.

85% of Vietnam Veterans made successful transitions to civilian life.

Interesting Census Stats and "Been There" Wanabees:

1,713,823 of those who served in Vietnam were still alive as of August, 1995

(census figures).

~ During that same Census count, the number of Americans falsely claiming to

have served in-country was: 9,492,958.

~ As of the current Census taken during August, 2000, the surviving U.S.

Vietnam Veteran population estimate is: 1,002,511. This is hard to believe,

losing nearly 711,000 between '95 and '00. That's 390 per day. During this

Census count, the number of Americans falsely claiming to have served

in-country is: 13,853,027. By this census, FOUR OUT OF FIVE WHO CLAIM TO BE

Vietnam vets are not.

 

The Department of Defense Vietnam War Service Index officially provided by

The War Library originally reported with errors that 2,709,918 U.S. military

personnel as having served in-country. Corrections and confirmations to this

errored index resulted in the addition of 358 U.S. military personnel

confirmed to have served in Vietnam but not originally listed by the

Department of Defense. (All names are currently on file and accessible

24/7/365).

 

Isolated atrocities committed by American Soldiers produced torrents of

outrage from anti-war critics and the news media while Communist atrocities

were so common that they received hardly any media mention at all. The

United States sought to minimize and prevent attacks on civilians while

North Vietnam made attacks on civilians a centerpiece of its strategy.

Americans who deliberately killed civilians received prison sentences while

Communists who did so received commendations. From 1957 to 1973, the

National Liberation Front assassinated 36,725 Vietnamese and abducted

another 58,499. The death squads focused on leaders at the village level and

on anyone who improved the lives of the peasants such as medical personnel,

social workers, and school teachers. - Nixon Presidential Papers

 

Common Myths Dispelled:

 

Myth: Common Belief is that most Vietnam veterans were drafted.

Fact: 2/3 of the men who served in Vietnam were volunteers. 2/3 of the men

who served in World War II were drafted. Approximately 70% of those killed

in Vietnam were volunteers.

 

Myth: The media have reported that suicides among Vietnam veterans range

from 50,000 to 100,000 - 6 to 11 times the non-Vietnam veteran population.

Fact: Mortality studies show that 9,000 is a better estimate. "The CDC

Vietnam Experience Study Mortality Assessment showed that during the first 5

years after discharge, deaths from suicide were 1.7 times more likely among

Vietnam veterans than non-Vietnam veterans. After that initial post-service

period, Vietnam veterans were no more likely to die from suicide than

non-Vietnam veterans. In fact, after the 5-year post-service period, the

rate of suicides is less in the Vietnam veterans' group.

 

Myth: Common belief is that a disproportionate number of blacks were killed

in the Vietnam War.

Fact: 86% of the men who died in Vietnam were Caucasians, 12.5% were black,

1.2% were other races. Sociologists Charles C. Moskos and John Sibley

Butler, in their recently published book "All That We Can Be," said they

analyzed the claim that blacks were used like cannon fodder during Vietnam

"and can report definitely that this charge is untrue. Black fatalities

amounted to 12 percent of all Americans killed in Southeast Asia – a

figure proportional to the number of blacks in the U.S. population at the

time and slightly lower than the proportion of blacks in the Army at the

close of the war."

 

Myth: Common belief is that the war was fought largely by the poor and

uneducated.

Fact: Servicemen who went to Vietnam from well-to-do areas had a slightly

elevated risk of dying because they were more likely to be pilots or

infantry officers. Vietnam Veterans were the best educated forces our nation

had ever sent into combat. 79% had a high school education or better.

 

Here are statistics from the Combat Area Casualty File (CACF) as of November

1993. The CACF is the basis for the Vietnam Veterans Memorial (The Wall):

Average age of 58,148 killed in Vietnam was 23.11 years. (Although 58,169

names are in the Nov. 93 database, only 58,148 have both event date and

birth date. Event date is used instead of declared dead date for some of

those who were listed as missing in action)

Deaths Average Age

Total: 58,148 23.11 years

Enlisted: 50,274 22.37 years

Officers: 6,598 28.43 years

Warrants: 1,276 24.73 years

E1 525 20.34 years

11B MOS: 18,465 22.55 years

 

Myth: The common belief is the average age of an infantryman fighting in

Vietnam was 19.

Fact:: Assuming KIAs accurately represented age groups serving in Vietnam,

the average age of an infantryman (MOS 11B) serving in Vietnam to be 19

years old is a myth, it is actually 22. None of the enlisted grades have an

average age of less than 20. The average man who fought in World War II was

26 years of age.

 

Myth: The Common belief is that the domino theory was proved false.

Fact: The domino theory was accurate. The ASEAN (Association of Southeast

Asian Nations) countries, Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore and

Thailand stayed free of Communism because of the U.S. commitment to Vietnam.

The Indonesians threw the Soviets out in 1966 because of America's

commitment in Vietnam. Without that commitment, Communism would have swept

all the way to the Malacca Straits that is south of Singapore and of great

strategic importance to the free world. If you ask people who live in these

countries that won the war in Vietnam, they have a different opinion from

the American news media. The Vietnam War was the turning point for

Communism.

 

Myth: The common belief is that the fighting in Vietnam was not as intense

as in World War II.

Fact: The average infantryman in the South Pacific during World War II saw

about 40 days of combat in four years. The average infantryman in Vietnam

saw about 240 days of combat in one year thanks to the mobility of the

helicopter. One out of every 10 Americans who served in Vietnam was a

casualty. 58,148 were killed and 304,000 wounded out of 2.7 million who

served. Although the percent that died is similar to other wars, amputations

or crippling wounds were 300 percent higher than in World War II ....75,000

Vietnam veterans are severely disabled. MEDEVAC helicopters flew nearly

500,000 missions. Over 900,000 patients were airlifted (nearly half were

American). The average time lapse between wounding to hospitalization was

less than one hour. As a result, less than one percent of all Americans

wounded, who survived the first 24 hours, died. The helicopter provided

unprecedented mobility. Without the helicopter it would have taken three

times as many troops to secure the 800 mile border with Cambodia and Laos

(the politicians thought the Geneva Conventions of 1954 and the Geneva

Accords or 1962 would secure the border).

 

Myth: Kim Phuc, the little nine year old Vietnamese girl running naked from

the napalm strike near Trang Bang on 8 June 1972.....shown a million times

on American television....was burned by Americans bombing Trang Bang.

Fact: No American had involvement in this incident near Trang Bang that

burned Phan Thi Kim Phuc. The planes doing the bombing near the village were

VNAF (Vietnam Air Force) and were being flown by Vietnamese pilots in

support of South Vietnamese troops on the ground. The Vietnamese pilot who

dropped the napalm in error is currently living in the United States. Even

the AP photographer, Nick Ut, who took the picture, was Vietnamese. The

incident in the photo took place on the second day of a three day battle

between the North Vietnamese Army (NVA) who occupied the village of Trang

Bang and the ARVN (Army of the Republic of Vietnam) who were trying to force

the NVA out of the village. Recent reports in the news media that an

American commander ordered the air strike that burned Kim Phuc are

incorrect. There were no Americans involved in any capacity. "We (Americans)

had nothing to do with controlling VNAF," according to Lieutenant General

(Ret) James F. Hollingsworth, the Commanding General of TRAC at that time.

Also, it has been incorrectly reported that two of Kim Phuc's brothers were

killed in this incident. They were Kim's cousins not her brothers.

 

Myth: The United States lost the war in Vietnam.

Fact: The American military was not defeated in Vietnam. The American

military did not lose a battle of any consequence. >From a military

standpoint, it was almost an unprecedented performance. General Westmoreland

quoting Douglas Pike, a professor at the University of California, Berkley a

major military defeat for the VC and NVA.

 

THE UNITED STATES DID NOT LOSE THE WAR IN VIETNAM, THE SOUTH VIETNAMESE DID.

Read on........

 

The fall of Saigon happened 30 April 1975, two years AFTER the American

military left Vietnam. The last American troops departed in their entirety

29 March 1973.

 

How could we lose a war we had already stopped fighting? We fought to an

agreed stalemate. The peace settlement was signed in Paris on 27 January

1973. It called for release of all U.S. prisoners, withdrawal of U.S.

forces, limitation of both sides' forces inside South Vietnam and a

commitment to peaceful reunification. The 140,000 evacuees in April 1975

during the fall of Saigon consisted almost entirely of civilians and

Vietnamese military, NOT American military running for their lives. There

were almost twice as many casualties in Southeast Asia (primarily Cambodia)

the first two years after the fall of Saigon in 1975 then there were during

the ten years the U.S. was involved in Vietnam. Thanks for the perceived

loss and the countless assassinations and torture visited upon Vietnamese,

Laotians, and Cambodians goes mainly to the American media and their undying

support-by-misrepresentation of the anti-War movement in the United States.

 

As with much of the Vietnam War, the news media misreported and

misinterpreted the 1968 Tet Offensive. It was reported as an overwhelming

success for the Communist forces and a decided defeat for the U.S. forces.

Nothing could be further from the truth. Despite initial victories by the

Communists forces, the Tet Offensive resulted in a major defeat of those

forces. General Vo Nguyen Giap, the designer of the Tet Offensive, is

considered by some as ranking with Wellington, Grant, Lee and MacArthur as a

great commander. Still, militarily, the Tet Offensive was a total defeat of

the Communist forces on all fronts. It resulted in the death of some 45,000

NVA troops and the complete, if not total destruction of the Viet Cong

elements in South Vietnam. The Organization of the Viet Cong Units in the

South never recovered. The Tet Offensive succeeded on only one front and

that was the News front and the political arena. This was another example in

the Vietnam War of an inaccuracy becoming the perceived truth. However,

inaccurately reported, the News Media made the Tet Offensive famous.

 

Please give all credit and research to:

Capt. Marshal Hanson, U.S.N.R (Ret.)

 

Capt. Scott Beaton, Statistical Source